


than I have ever known

by Trelkez



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelkez/pseuds/Trelkez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a lonely boy sitting in a field of flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	than I have ever known

There's a lonely boy sitting in a field of flowers. The sky is blue, the flowers are glossy orange, and all around the clearing the trees sing with frogs and crickets and birds. It's a nice spot. Quiet. She wonders if this is somewhere he's been before, or if he pulled it from a movie or a postcard.

"Hi," she says, settling next to him on the grass.

He doesn't look at her. He's staring down at the ground, tearing the petals off orange flowers.

"I'm Laura," she says, holding out a hand. He doesn't take it. "This is where you're supposed to say, 'hi, I'm—'"

"Are you an angel?" He glances over at her, a little bit skeptical, a little bit afraid.

"Yes, Boyd," she says, sarcasm pouring out before she can filter it into something gentler. "I'm the angel Laura."

"I'm dead," he says, no emotion behind it whatsoever. "I'm dead, and you know my name. Don't act like it's a stupid question."

This is why Laura shouldn't be the welcoming committee.

"I'm like you," she says, shrugging.

"Dead?"

"A werewolf." She lets her eyes turn red, smiles when his gleam yellow in response. "And dead. We have a lot in common."

"You're Derek's sister Laura," he says. She's opening her mouth to say _so he_ has _mentioned me_ when she notices that the realization hasn't made him relax any; if anything, he's warier now, closed off. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Because you're pack." Shouldn't that be obvious? "You're in the Hale pack. Of course I'm going to talk to you."

"How do you know I'm—" He stops, sitting up straighter. "Do you know where Erica is? She's pack, too."

"Blonde Erica?" Laura can see things down there, sometimes. It's like looking at the bottom of a lake through a cloud; once in a while she can pick out the shapes of things, vague impressions of movement underwater. She knows about Erica and Isaac and Jackson. She knew about Boyd, had a pretty good idea he was the one she was looking for when the pack bond up here expanded by one. "She isn't here."

He goes still. She studies him, wondering if she should reach out, touch his arm, try to soothe him. Why did he think Erica was dead? What's going on down there?

"Does that mean she's somewhere else?" Shit, he's freaking out. "Somewhere bad?"

He thinks Erica is in _hell?_ Laura is 50/50 on there even being a hell, but she's pretty sure spunky blonde Erica wouldn't be over there even if it did exist.

"She's still down there," Laura says, pointing down. "She isn't dead. I'd know it if she were, I'd feel it. You would, too. I don't know what's going on or where she is right now, but she isn't here."

Boyd's face crumples.

"Yay?" She has no idea what to do now. She never knew how to comfort Derek when he cried; she's utterly useless when big, muscular guys go to pieces. "Yay, right? Because she isn't dead?"

He wipes at his eyes.

"I've been waiting for Erica," he says, covering his face with his hand. "I thought she'd be here. When I woke up in this place — she had a picture of it taped up in her locker."

He sounds so, so lonely, and guilty, as though his loneliness is something horrible.

"Hey," Laura says quietly, lightly tapping his knee. "It's okay to be sad she isn't with you. It's okay to miss people down there. Trust me, you're going to miss them a lot. If you beat yourself up over it, the next few decades are going to suck for you."

He gives a shaky, angry laugh. "I'm _dead_ , sitting in some stupid picture missing my best friend, and my first response wasn't even to be happy she's alive. What doesn't suck about that?"

Maybe a change of scenery is in order.

"Close your eyes," she says. He looks at her like she just told him to jump into a canyon. "Come on, close 'em. You're dead, remember? Not much I can do to you up here."

That's the absolute truth, but it's still a little alarming how he just shrugs and goes with it. Did he do whatever Derek told him to do? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Then again, he _is_ dead, so — yeah. The disaster already happened, didn't it.

Oh, Derek.

Laura closes her eyes, too. She reaches for home, for the first image of home that comes to mind: full moon, bare trees, cold ground. When she opens her eyes, the poppy field is gone.

Boyd opens his eyes when she taps his knee again.

"Huh," is all he says. _Huh._ Tough audience, this kid.

"You'll get used to it," she says, sprawling back on the half-dead grass. They're in the clearing behind her family's house. She knows by the positions of the stars above the trees that she's looking up at a Wolf Moon: the moon she died under, the moon her family died under. When she summons a full moon, it's almost always a Wolf Moon. She can't help it. "It can be fun."

"Fun," he repeats, raising his eyebrows. That's a total Derek move, right there. Being around Boyd is making her miss Derek like it's day one, the ache that sharp, the worry that fresh. "You think being dead is fun?"

"You'll get used to it," she says again. He tilts his head back, looking up at the night sky. He probably wasn't raised to recognize the seasons in the constellations like she was, probably wasn't taught to feel the difference in the pull of a full moon at perigee or apogee. Derek loved learning that stuff when they were kids, but he never talks — talked — about things they learned as kids. She can't imagine him teaching it to his betas. She can't imagine him teaching anything to anybody, which is a problem, given, y'know, _alpha_.

Derek would probably like it up here.

She winces, trying to erase that thought from existence.

"You don't have to get used to it right away, though," she says, pushing herself up on her elbows. "You'll probably want to be alone for a while. Figure things out for yourself. Find your family, maybe, if there's anyone up here you'd like to see."

"You're just going to let me go do whatever," Boyd says doubtfully, looking down at her.

"Well, yeah," she says. He snorts. What does that mean? Is Derek a helicopter alpha? "I'm only here to tell you that the pack is here for you when you're ready." She waves an arm back at the house. "You'll be able to find us when you want to."

He squints at the house. "It looks different."

"Amazing what _not burning_ does to a place," Laura says. Why would they want the house to look burned? "I'm going in. I'll see you later."

She gets halfway to the house before she glances back over her shoulder. He's gone. Back to the poppy field, maybe, or somewhere new.

Her dad opens the back door. He looks up at the stars, over at the trees, and sighs, closing his eyes. In a moment, it's spring, the stars realigning for late April.

"Sorry," she says.

He shakes his head, holding the door open for her. They don't want or need it, but she can't stop apologizing: for outliving them by six years, for constantly putting the Wolf Moon in their sky, for missing Derek so badly even though almost everyone else is right here, even though she should be glad Derek is still alive.

Laura gets why being lonely and feeling guilty go hand in hand. She does.

"I don't want to be the welcoming committee anymore," she says.

"Hopefully, you won't have to be, sweetheart," her dad says. "Not for a very long time."

He doesn't sound like he believes it.


End file.
